At the Tuesday, Oct. 17 Board of Education meeting, members of the Moorestown Robotics community asked the board to to allocate funding toward their transportation costs.
Parents and students took to public comments during the Tuesday, Oct. 17, Board of Education meeting in William Allen Middle School to ask the board to take a hard look at how it is allocating resources.
Parent Maria Blatcher kicked off public comments by saying Moorestown Robotics does not receive any funding toward transportation.
“The state of New Jersey recently passed a bill which recognizes robotics as a varsity sport,” Blatcher said. “We respectfully ask that the district treat us the same as our athletic teams and the pep band so that students who wish to compete intellectually may do so with the same privileges afforded to our student athletes.”
Blatcher said the program is its fifth year and has won several awards. She said as a parent to three children who have gone through the program, she has seen the leadership and entrepreneurship benefits firsthand.
However, the program comes at a high cost with the annual budget coming in at around $20,000, Blatcher said.
“We raise this largely through grants and sponsorships, but these are becoming increasingly hard to find.”
The group’s transportation costs weigh in at around $5,000, and receiving funding would ensure the survival of the still relatively new team, Blatcher said
Student Aedan McHale said he has been on the robotics team for more than a year. He said he also runs cross country and both programs’ competitions bolster similar levels of enthusiasm.
McHale said while he enjoys cross country, his dream is to become a mechanical engineer. He said it is Moorestown Robotics that will help him achieve that dream and not running cross country.
“It’s almost interesting to me that cross country — which in all fairness I’m not going to get into college for — is in high regard to the board than is robotics,” McHale said.
Fellow cross country runner and robotics member, Jackson Farmer, said his work on the team’s finances and marketing integration has helped set him up for the future.
“The opportunities I’ve gained on the robotics team have been incredibly helpful for me in figuring out what field specifically in finance I want to go into,” Farmer said.
McHale said the program is important to all its members and to have their transportation needs covered would be “incredibly helpful.”
Parent Christin Taylor said not everyone is an athlete and so Moorestown Robotics offers an alternative. She said part of the reason her family stays in Moorestown despite an hour and half commute to work is because of what the program offers their son.
Board president Dr. Sandra Alberti said she has also seen the value of robotics having brought a program to a school she was teaching at 20 years ago.
“None of this policy is based on judgment or value about what’s going on in FIRST robotics,”Alberti said.
Alberti said the board is committed to looking at athletics and competitions of mind in a “wholesale” fashion as they evaluate how to fund school organizations moving forward.
“What does the way we fund things say about our values for what’s going on in the town?” Alberti said.
The next meeting of the Moorestown Township Board of Education will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 14 in the William W. Allen Middle School.
